Rudolf Ernst

Private collection of Virginia H. Rogers, Chicago (their sale: Hindman Auctions, Chicago, 27 September 2022, lot 65)

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Ernst’s compositions were often composites of places he had visited, fused together in a single painting upon his return to his studio in Paris. The present work, however, is rare to find, having been painted entirely on the spot in Granada, as his inscription attests. The Alhambra’s mid thirteenth-century Nasrid honeycomb vaulting or muqarnas features regularly in Ernst’s interiors, but more often than not juxtaposed with architectural features borrowed from other locations. Here, the artist faithfully records an actual place, albeit with the addition of the turbaned guard figure wielding a flintlock rifle. Ernst, having himself mastered making and firing glazed ceramic ware, took particular delight in observing the polychrome tile designs, and in paint reveals his deep understanding of their properties.